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KAYLA WALKED JUST AHEAD of me down the hall toward her office. I stopped at a large, corner office with the door open but the lights off. It was bright from the sun and, like Angela’s office, overlooked the St. Johns.
Kayla stopped a few steps ahead and turned. “That’s John’s office. Nobody’s been in there since...” She walked to where I stood and looked around the office, then turned and continued down the hall.
“Not even anyone from the Sheriff’s Office?” I said.
She glanced back at me and shook her head as I followed her into her office. It was small, about the size of a walk-in closet. She sat behind her desk and gestured toward the two chairs across from her. “Please, have a seat.”
I glanced at the small leather couch squeezed into the office as I sat down in the uncomfortable chair. I shifted and looked toward the one window she had in the place. For the most part, Kayla didn’t get much of a view.
“Would you like a coffee?” she said.
“Sure, I’ll have a coffee.”
“Anything in it?”
“No. Just black.”
She got up from her desk and left the office.
I looked around at the pictures hanging on the wall. There was a photo of two children, posing with a gray background like it’d been taken at Sears. I knew Kayla wasn’t married.
I turned the frame on her desk, a photo of an older man and a woman. The woman looked like Kayla.
“My parents,” Kayla said as she walked up behind me.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I was just...”
She put a mug with black coffee down on the desk between us. The Thompson Insurance logo was printed on the side, in red. “Not a big deal. I figured you’d snoop around when I left. Isn’t that part of your job?” She smiled but it seemed forced.
I turned in my chair as Kayla sat on the small couch. She straightened her skirt then crossed her long legs then watched me for a moment without saying a word.
To break the uncomfortable silence I turned toward the photo of the two kids up on the wall. “Any chance those are yours?”
She laughed and shook her head. “I would’ve had to have had them in my teens.” She stared at the photo. “That’s my niece and nephew.”
“Forgive me for the question, but you’re, what, twenty-eight?”
“I just turned twenty-nine.”
“So you were twenty-two when you started working for John?”
She nodded. “I was actually twenty-three, if you don’t include the unpaid internship. I worked alongside the office manager.” She looked up and shook her head. “She was an evil person...almost got me to quit.”
“How do you quit a job when you don’t actually get paid?” I said, half joking.
Kayla stared at me for a moment and looked unsure if she should laugh. “I was going to walk out. But right around the same time, John asked me if I was good with computers. When I told him I was, he hired me to be his assistant.”
I sipped my coffee. “So you’ve known John a long time. Longer than his own wife?”
She nodded as she twisted a strand of hair around her finger. “He made me a VP a year later.”
“VP of what?”
“VP of account services.”
We stared at each other for a moment.
“Then you were around when he married Theresa?” I said.
Her eyes went down toward her legs as she adjusted her skirt. She nodded. “I still remember the first time I met her. She had a surprise birthday party for John at her house. I’d only been working for him for a few weeks and, at the time, wasn’t even sure why I was invited. Theresa planned the whole thing. I remember feeling a little out of place. Especially since she didn’t invite many people from the office. I figured out she only invited me because she needed my help, to make sure John didn’t find out about it.”
“Was Angela there?”
Kayla shook her head. “No. That would’ve been weird.”
“What about Michelle?”
Kayla seemed to roll her eyes. “Michelle was Nate’s nanny. Actually, I don’t know if she was still technically the nanny by that point, but she worked for her. More like her gofer. Theresa’s slave.”
“Her slave?”
Kayla nodded. “Theresa had her running around all day, serving food and drinks to the guests. I remember almost feeling bad for her. She didn’t seem to be having a very good time.”
Kayla shifted in her seat and ran her hands up her legs. Her eyes were on me...and she gave me a look I wasn’t sure I could read.
I straightened up in my seat. “Did you and Theresa get along?”
“I guess so. But she was a jealous woman. She was jealous of any other female John would even talk to. She’d asked John about me, more than once.”
“Yeah? Did he tell you what she’d say?”
Kayla hesitated a moment. “I’m sorry, but what does this all have to do with? You know she’s dead, right?”
I nodded my head. “I’m just trying to understand as much as I can about John’s relationships.”
She turned away and looked toward the window. “John was a good man.”
I watched her for a moment, her eyes out somewhere else. “Was there more between you and John than him being your boss?”
Kayla snapped a look toward me. “What did you say?”
“I’m sorry. I just...was there ever anything I should know about that might’ve happened between you and John?”
She shook her head. “No! Never! I don’t think I like your questions one bit.”
“I’m sorry. But...”
“I hope you’re not implying that John and I...”
“I’m asking because I believe John was in Georgia, seeing a client just before the weekend of his death. And is it true you were with him?”
She stared at me without answering.
“Kayla, I’m not saying you’re guilty of anything because you went on a work trip with John. But if you did go...I’d like to know.”
She cleared her throat. “I know a lot about the insurance business. John used to say I knew more than most people who’d been in this business thirty years.”
“So you were there?”
She got up from the couch and stepped to the window. She didn’t answer, and kept her back to me. Her hand rubbed up and down her arm, just below her shoulder, like she was trying to break a chill.
“Did you stay with him?” I said.
She turned to me. “With John?” She shook her head. “No.”
“But you also stayed Friday night?”
Kayla’s eyes narrowed as she turned from the window and sat back behind her desk. “I came home Friday, right after the meeting. I have no idea what John did after that. But I was home. In fact, I went to bed early.”